Over 250 delighted fans stormed Meaford Hall on Saturday for a museum fundraiser featuring Canadian folk icons Tanglefoot.
The band gave an energetic performance playing set that included their classics Dollar Bill, Old Broken Soldier and a rousing version of Seven A Side as well as newer songs including Maggie and Roll on Jamaica. The band's passion only seemed heightened by the audience's delight and never let up during the nearly two-and-a-half-hour show.
The band freely joked with the audience and each other in between songs, lamenting the loss of the "treasure of completely inappropriate information" when Grey County switched from the party line system. Perhaps the funniest moment was when multi-instrumentalist Terry Young told the audience that they could do their part to fight global warming by purchasing Tanglefoot merchandise and therefore lightening the band's vehicle on the drive home so it would use less gasoline.
The highlight of the show came when guitarist Steve Ritchie talked about the band's recent performance in Toronto during Earth Hour.
"It's hard to observe something like Earth Hour when your performing in a theatre with 500 people so we did our own sort of token observance which we're going to do for you right now," said Ritchie before the band unplugged their microphones and instruments and gathered together onstage to sing a completely a capella song.
The band returned to the stage for an encore performance of Secord's Warning and got massive cheers from the audience on the line calling on all Canadians to "Stand guard against Yankee domination."
Despite the amazing performance, the focus of the night was the Meaford Museum.
"All of the funds raised from ticket sales and merchandise will go towards our vestibule fundraising campaign," said museum curator, Pam Woolner introducing the show. "Thank you so much for your support."
The vestibule fundraising project aims to make the museum more wheelchair accessible for visitors and thanks to Tanglefoot and Saturday's audience, they are now much closer to that goal.
